One of the strangest quirks of New York law is that city officials can't actually regulate speed on the city's streets. The right to set the speed limit rests almost entirely in Albany with the state legislature, a stubborn reality that has long blocked efforts to slow traffic on pedestrian-filled thoroughfares.

Now, advocates and elected officials are mounting a serious push to change that. New bills introduced in the state Assembly and Senate would give the New York City Council the power to reduce the speed limit by 10 mph on residential streets.

Currently, the limit on these streets is 30 mph, except where marked. It can't be lowered by more than five mph, except in school zones or with physical traffic-calming measures like speed bumps (the city has also designated a couple of special "slow zones").

Research has shown that lower speeds dramatically decrease injuries to pedestrians hit by drivers.

How fast are drivers actually traveling? New Yorkers recently got some idea, thanks to six speed cameras deployed near city schools. The cameras are part of a pilot program to issue tickets to motorists traveling more than 10 mph over the limit. The enforcement effort resulted in 900 tickets in just two weeks. Near one Staten Island high school, 97 percent of drivers were speeding.

But newly elected Mayor Bill de Blasio has shown strong support for reducing traffic fatalities, articulating a "Vision Zero" plan to reduce traffic fatalities to none in the city within 10 years, using lower speeds and better speed enforcement.

Longtime advocates of lower speed limits say that unprecedented coordinated support from the Mayor's Office, the City Council, and the DOT mean that the city has a unique opportunity to take control of its own streets.

"I think the voices coming from New York City are more unified than ever and louder than ever," says Keegan Stephan, an organizer with street safety group Right of Way, which helped to organize the weekend rally. "I think it would be pretty hard for the state to deny us now."